BRAKE FIX FOR LIGHT RAIL LIKELY TO BE LONG HAUL

There will be no short-term fix for the sidelined Sprinter light-rail system, officials for the North County Transit District said Thursday.

The agency won’t have a specific timetable for when the trains can return to service until May, said Mike Wygant, the district’s deputy chief of operations.

The district had shut down the Sprinter network on March 9 because of accelerated brake wear discovered during a state inspection, describing the action as a precautionary measure. It has yet to say what caused the problem.

On Thursday, district officials provided an update on the overall situation during the district’s first board meeting since the shutdown. The session took place in the district’s board room in Oceanside.

Wygant said the agency has ordered a small number of replacement brake rotors from two European manufacturers. It hopes to receive the parts by late April and install and test them in May.

The district needs to secure regulatory approvals before it can return any of its trains to service. Deborah Castillo, a spokeswoman for the district, said the agency doesn’t know how long that regulatory process might take.

Officials previously said it could be up to four months before the trains, which connect Oceanside to Escondido, resume operations.

Also at Thursday’s meeting, transit directors approved a 30-day contract that will pay U.S. Coachways up to $664,780 for eight charter buses. Those vehicles, along with the agency’s existing buses, are being used to ferry the thousands of riders who previously used the Sprinter.

An agency staff report on the bus contract said the district is working “to recoup” expenses related to the Sprinter shutdown from Veolia Transportation and Bombardier, the contractors that operate and maintain the trains, respectively.

In addition, the district has begun providing updates on the Sprinter situation through a blog on
gonctd.com/sprinter.

CHRIS NICHOLS • U-T

PUC to require measurements of brake wear

North County

The California Public Utilities Commission will require transit agencies to document measurements of wear on brakes and rotors so they can avoid the fate of the Sprinter line, which was shut down suddenly this month.

Accelerated rotor wear on the Oceanside-to-Escondido light-rail line went undetected by state inspectors for nearly two years.

The announcement Thursday by Paul King, the commission’s deputy director of railroad safety, came the day after the U-T Watchdog reported that North County Transit District maintenance records did not include these measurements, instead just noting that the brakes passed inspection.

“It doesn’t do any good to measure and document ‘pass,’ ” King said. “Because you will show ‘pass, pass, pass, pass, fail’ in your records — and it is almost guaranteed to fail.”

NCTD officials say a maintenance contractor and a former district engineer knew about the uneven rotor wear for at least 18 months without informing superiors.

During that time, the utilities commission conducted some 50 inspections of the light rail service without catching the issue. They largely relied on the maintenance records.

State inspectors discovered the brake issue by chance during a March 1 follow-up inspection to a Jan. 14 failure in a different area of the braking system.

The transit district shut the Sprinter down March 9, which was the $477 million rail line’s fifth anniversary. The trains may be idled for four months while awaiting parts from Europe.

State utilities officials said the shutdown came as a surprise because of the Sprinter’s relatively short time in operation.

“We have 100-year-old vehicles in San Francisco,” King said. “Our concern has been more with the older infrastructure.”